Tygers Page 10

  That was all this was, a nightmare. Her whole life had become a nightmare, and she had to find a way to stop it. Oh, Dad. What do I do this time?

  Mac sat on the couch and tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away and curled herself into a tighter ball in the oversized chair.

  “Katheryn, are you all right? Can I get you anything?”

  “Just leave, Mac. I just want to be alone.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.

  “It’s what I’m used to. Nothing ever changes,” she replied miserably.

  Mac patted her shoulder gently. “Carol is fine, and Kyle will probably be home tomorrow,” he offered, obviously fishing for her response.

  “He’ll be fine, Mac. You know that as well as I do.”

  “How could you know that?”

  She rubbed her eyes roughly. “You would have mentioned it if he wasn’t,” she answered in a flat voice. “I’m no good to him this way. Not yet.” Katheryn closed her eyes and let the bone weary ache carry her into the waiting darkness. “I need sleep first,” she murmured. Yes, sleep was preferable. Her dreams had to be better than the nightmare of her life.

  Katheryn barely felt Mac tuck the quilt from the back of the couch around her before the door closed behind him. She shouldn’t shoot the messenger. Mac wasn’t at fault for the message, and he did care. She couldn’t even ask the question she needed to ask, and he’d think she was crazy if she did ask it. Was it really a heart attack? Did Ty have anything to gain by her mother’s death?

  Kyle’s voice settled in her mind. “I don’t like it. He wants you close. He likes you.”

  Katheryn shuddered and changed position as the leather warmed around her. “Of course, he likes me,” she mused. “I’m prey. He wants me in his range.” She laughed harshly. “Oh, the tiger will love you. There is no sincerer love than the love of food. Thank you, Mr. Shaw.” She sobbed and tried to recapture the sleep that suddenly seemed so threatening.

  Chapter Five

  “Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.” William Dement

  “They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” Edgar Allen Poe

  Mac stared at the file on his desk again. It just didn’t make sense. Based on the situation, the ME rushed the autopsy on Dianna O’Hanlon. She died of a heart attack, but case not closed there. She had two sets of the same welts inflicted on Peter and Monica, and the ME was still chomping at the bit to find out what caused them. The only other injury was a small cut on her hand. Mac shuddered at the possibility that Dianna was about to slice open the welts, but he rejected that when they found the grave.

  That was the only thing Mac could call it in good conscience—a grave. The stuffed tiger was sliced down the belly-seam, probably with the knife they found on the countertop. It had been clumsily wrapped in a dishtowel before being buried in a small grave about a foot deep. A small bloodstain near the split seam proved to be Dianna’s blood.

  Wild visions of Dianna defending herself against an attacking pint-sized tiger came unbidden to his mind, and Mac shook his head to clear them. It was a damn toy, and Dianna O’Hanlon was a rational woman. She wasn’t prone to hysterics. She wasn’t easy to rattle. After all the years of Katheryn’s nightmares, she was the most stoic, controlled woman he ever met. He couldn’t imagine anything driving her over the edge.

  Katheryn’s reaction was typical of Katheryn. She always wanted to be alone. Her pain was private, as it always had been since her father died. Before that, she only shared it with O’Hanlon. Her joys, if she had many, were subdued. She had been a happy child who showed a deep affection for her father and sister but rarely for anyone else. The rest of Katheryn’s world was kept at arms length, until Keith Randall and Kyle.

  It was rare to see a picture of Katheryn showing deep emotion or kinship, except for her father. Her father’s death affected her in a way she couldn’t hide. There were few pictures in the years after where she looked truly happy. The surprise at seeing her wrapped in Keith’s arms and so joyous about being there still struck a chord in Mac, and he found himself wondering if Dr. Randall was someone she wouldn’t have pushed away the night before, despite whatever grudge she held against him.

  * * *

  By the time Mac returned to Dianna’s house, Katheryn was lugging boxes inside. A check of the truck as he grabbed a box showed that it was half-empty. Mac glanced at his watch and groaned. Nine o’clock. She couldn’t have slept much more than six hours, if that much.

  Katheryn eyed him critically as he walked in with a box of books. “Thanks, Mac. That goes to the office.”

  He smiled crookedly. “Sure. Could you use some help this morning? I have some free time.”

  “Gladly. Just don’t call in the troops on my behalf.”

  He took in the sight of her as she pushed the desk from her father’s office under the window in the living room. Katheryn was shapely as ever, and as always, she had a surprising strength, both physical and emotional. In her hiking boots, jeans, the men’s work shirt skimming her thighs and the sleeves rolled up above the elbows, and with her long, black hair pulled back into a braid; she looked much younger than her thirty-two years. Only her eyes showed her ageless qualities.

  Mac dropped the box and went back for another. He changed plans and grabbed the other end of a heavy folding worktable she was manhandling toward the ramp on the truck.

  “Ever thought of asking for help?” he chided her.

  “Not my strong point. You should know that.” Katheryn smiled grimly below the dark sunglasses that she had grabbed from the front table on her way out.

  “So, will you be staying here?” he asked lightly as she heaved her end up to her hip.

  “For now. In the long run—” She shrugged as he matched her lift less easily than she did it. “It’s an awful lot of house for just me, Mac.”

  “Your mother has been alone here for ten years,” he reminded her as they hauled the table into the house.

  “She had children. She expected to entertain them, maybe even have Carol and Kyle move home with her if things finally fell through with Peter.”

  They set the table in the place her father’s desk once stood and started to set it up.

  “Carol. But never you?”

  Katheryn pushed off the work table and headed back for the truck with Mac close behind. “Not me,” she confirmed. “People don’t enjoy living with me. You know that. They tolerate it. They get used to it. They never like it.”

  “Is that why you live alone?”

  Katheryn shrugged but didn’t answer.

  “You know your Dad wouldn’t want that for you, Katheryn.”

  She faltered, a slight hitch in her movements that told him he had struck a nerve with her, as he knew he would.

  “He’s not here, Mac. I can’t pretend he is. He was the only person who wasn’t fazed by me. Only at first. He didn’t just tolerate me like everyone else, but that’s over now.” Her voice cracked slightly at the end, but she kept moving.

  “Have you given anyone a shot at more than tolerating you?” he changed tack slightly.

  “Is there a point to this?” Katheryn asked as she grabbed the headboard and footboard for her bed and slung them over her shoulders.

  Mac grabbed the siders and crossbeams. “Only that you can’t be sure if you don’t try.”

  “I’ve tried. Yeah, they may last until that first nightmare, but they run like hell after that.”

  “Never one that didn’t run?” he asked.

  “Nope. It’s not my most endearing quality, not that I’m particularly endearing on my own. I’m lucky if they stick around long enough for me to fall asleep with them.”

  “Speaking of sleep,” he grunted as he trudged up the stairs after her. “Did you get any get any last night?”

  “Sure. Maybe five and a half down,” she answered absently.

&
nbsp; “That’s not good for you. On a regular basis, it’s not enough, and I’ve asked you three times in the last few weeks with the same results.” He stopped outside the master bedroom as she kept walking. “Katheryn?”

  She turned and looked at him uncertainly. Her eyes widened as she realized his intent. “I didn’t think,” she began miserably.

  “What size is that bed? Queen?”

  “King,” she corrected him sheepishly. “It’s not going to fit in my old room unless I take all the furniture out, is it?”

  “Probably not. Besides, your parents would want you to be comfortable. They’re gone, Katheryn.”

  She nodded and turned back to the open door to the master bedroom. “And I can’t pretend they aren’t,” she whispered on her way in.

  They moved the next several loads in silence, as Katheryn seemed to make her peace with overwriting her parents’ places in their home. As they were unloading the last of the boxes from the truck, Mac tried an experiment. If he could strike another nerve, he’d have his answer.

  “I met one of your old classmates recently,” he informed her.

  “Really?” she answered absently. “Who’d you meet?”

  “Keith Randall. Nice guy.”

  She stumbled and righted herself quickly.

  Mac smiled widely behind her. “What do you think of him?”

  Katheryn dropped the box she was carrying more forcefully than was necessary and turned to face him with her fists planted on her hips. “Did Carol put you up to this?” she demanded.

  “No, she didn’t.”

  She searched his face for a moment before she nodded. “Well, let’s put your mind at ease. Keith and I wanted different things. It was that simple.”

  “What did you want?”

  She looked away. “It doesn’t matter anymore, I suppose. It doesn’t do any good to pretend it does.”

  “Okay. Is there anything else to move in?”

  “Just some cushions in the SUV. I’ll get them after I unload it.”

  “Need help unpacking—or packing?” he asked pointedly.

  “No. I’ll handle it, Mac. Thanks for your help.”

  “Katheryn, do me a favor.”

  She shot him a cynical look.

  “Give people a chance.”

  Katheryn snorted and rolled her eyes. “Like Keith Randall?” she guessed.

  “Like everyone. Call me when you’re ready to move some things out.”

  “I will. I’ll probably drop a load to the Salvation Army before I return the truck.”

  Mac gave her a quick hug. “Take care, Katheryn.”

  “Don’t I always?” she drawled.

  “Yeah, you do. Tell you what. Work on letting other people take care of you for while.”

  She smiled tightly and nodded as he turned to leave, but Mac got the distinct impression that it was a wasted plea.

  One thing he was sure of was Katheryn’s opinion of Keith Randall. Whatever happened between them in high school aside, if Dr. Randall was still interested, he had his work cut out for him. She was stubborn, but as controlled as she was, Katheryn couldn’t hide her feelings about him, just as she couldn’t hide her feelings for her father. She needed that man on some elemental level, just as she had needed her father. Mac just hoped Katheryn was smart enough to realize it.

  * * *

  Katheryn pushed the hair back from her forehead. She concentrated on the office and bedroom. Since Carol didn’t want the bed or any of the clothes, not that they would have fit either of them anyway, she boxed Dianna’s things as she unpacked her own. Katheryn carted the boxes down to the truck as she filled them. She added her parents’ bed frame to it and some linens from the closet and closed it up. After she dropped it all off and returned the truck and trailer, she hiked back to the house.

  She set up her computer and unpacked books onto the shelves. Katheryn ran her hand over the four she wrote. They were popular, award winning, but they were more than that. They were proof that she hadn’t wasted the last six years of her life. Katheryn still did freelance work, and she had the money from her grandmother to fall back on, but those four books and the three in the grinder were her true love. Writing let her escape the surreal mess of her life into a place where the rules made sense and people remembered their past.

  Katheryn thought about Mac and shook her head. He meant well, but he brought up one subject she really wished she could avoid until after Ty was taken care of—maybe forever. Why everyone was intent on her giving Keith a second chance was beyond her.

  Sure, he’d be great in bed. She had no doubts that sex with him would be spectacular, but it would never be more than that. That was why she could never give him a chance. Katheryn didn’t want a one-night stand. She refused to accept that from him, no matter how many dreams she had about him.

  Kyle was home now. He was pronounced in good health, though he seemed to have no memory of the previous day. She decided that no memory could be a blessing if you weren’t tortured by the half-there things Katheryn hated so badly. The nagging uncertainty was what drove her insane, the feelings with no rational basis to back them.

  She sighed. Katheryn would see Kyle at dinner. By then, she might have some idea of what the hell she was doing here. She hoped she would.

  * * *

  That wishful thinking was all for naught. Showered and dressed in clean clothes, she trudged into Carol’s without knocking. That was the way it was in their family. If the door was unlocked, “walk right in and make yourself to-home.” Katheryn started by washing her hands and cutting the vegetables laid out on the cutting board into the bed of lettuce already in the large salad bowl.

  She felt Carol enter the room before her sister spoke. “I should walk away from work more often,” she joked.

  Katheryn nodded. “How’s Kyle?” she asked quietly.

  Carol sighed. “I should be thankful that he’s so normal, but—”

  “He shouldn’t be normal right now, so normal is highly abnormal,” she stated.

  “Katie, what is going on here?”

  Katheryn shook her head, unsure of what she could say to make it sound better than it was. Instead, she changed the subject. “What did the tests show?” she countered.

  “Katie.” Carol sighed and pulled herself up on the countertop next to the cutting board. “He’s my son,” she pleaded.

  “What did the tests show?” she insisted.

  “His blood sugar was low again.”

  “That’s to be expected,” she mused. “What else?”

  “He was seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. What was he seeing and hearing? I know you know,” she ordered.

  “I’m not exactly sure, but I know it’s something you can’t see.” Katheryn cringed inwardly at that one. Okay, it isn’t quite a lie, but telling her the whole truth is out. Memory or no memory of him, it would freak Carol.

  “Go on,” Carol prodded.

  “Look,” she growled. Katheryn calmed herself and started again. “I’m here to find out, okay? I’ll settle it.”

  “And then you’ll leave again. Right?”

  Katheryn looked at her hopelessly. “I can’t stay here. You know that.”

  “Why? Because there are mountains and bridges?” she spat. “How long are you going to hide behind that?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “What difference does it make? Even when you’re here, you’re not here for anyone but Kyle. Even your friends are passable luxuries to you, aren’t they?”

  Katheryn opened her mouth to protest, but Carol was right. She didn’t even call Sherry last time she was in town, hadn’t even considered calling her yet this time. They didn’t write often. They didn’t talk often. She had friends, people she called friends, but what did that really mean to her? It didn’t mean that she confided in them. Trust wasn’t high on her list of priorities. It never had been. After all, who would think she was sane if she trusted them? Katheryn shook her head miserably,
accepting her sister’s censure as fact.

  “Katie, I need to know what is going on with my son,” she pleaded.

  “And, I told you that I don’t know yet. When I do, I’ll tell you. In the meantime, what is it that you really want, Carol?”

  Carol sighed and her shoulders slumped. “I just want you to be here—really here.”

  “I am,” she shouted. Katheryn tightened her hand around the knife. “You need to talk to me. Talk and I’ll listen and— Heaven help us. I’ll probably make suggestions. Yes, suggestions. I don’t give orders. If you need help with anything, I’ll do what I can. What more can I do, Carol?”

  “Talk to me,” she demanded.

  “I just said I would. Pick a subject. Go on.”

  “All right. Tell me about your life.”

  “What don’t you already know? I tell you everything.”

  “Not your work,” Carol countered. “I want to hear about your life, about you.”

  “Same difference. I eat, I sleep, I write, I deal with agents and publishers, and I occasionally have dinner and a movie out—or in with someone or more likely alone. What’s to tell?” She shrugged as she chopped a tomato. “Occasionally—Rarely, I find a guy I like enough to pass some time with.”

  “Anyone serious?”

  “You know the answer to that,” Katheryn replied.

  “And that’s okay with you? That’s what you accept in your life? It’s enough?”

  Katheryn shrugged again. “It’s what I have,” she admitted.

  “You could have more,” Carol whispered.

  “If this is another Keith Randall pep talk, stow it. Mac has already had the honor of that speech today. You can give it a rest.” She started slicing a cucumber furiously.

  “The hell with Keith,” Carol exploded.

  Katheryn dropped the knife in surprise. “What did you just say? You’re giving up on the great cause?”

  “What great cause? All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy. Keith makes you happy. At least, he did when you let him.”

  “Keith makes me miserable.”